


Warm Strangers

by garden of succulents (staranise)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Amnesia, Future Fic, M/M, Married Couple, Pure unashamed fluff, That video where a man doesn't remember his wife after surgery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-15
Updated: 2016-11-15
Packaged: 2018-08-31 06:49:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8568397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staranise/pseuds/garden%20of%20succulents
Summary: The first time Kent wakes up, he's alone in the recovery ward of a hospital.The second time he wakes up, there's a man he doesn't recognize who's very nice to him--and very attractive.Kent wonders if this guy might like him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqebEymqFS8).

The second time he wakes up he’s not alone; there’s a very nice man with worried eyes.  He sees right away when Kent moves his hands, distressingly disoriented, puts a hand on Kent’s shoulder and fumbles for the call button.  “We call nurse,” he says, and waits for Kent to nod before he presses it.

His mouth is dry, his tongue painfully stuck to the roof of his mouth, and it makes a bubble of panic rise in his chest because he can’t _speak_ ; he can’t even open his mouth for an attempt at sound to come out.  He mimes drinking water.

“You want drink?” the man says.  “I have no liquid, not sure if nurse give us any.”  He reaches out and smooths the hair away from Kent’s forehead, a gentle gesture that feels so good Kent wants to keep him, wishes he could just stroke Kent’s entire face.  “I should go get nurse, ask?”  


_No, don’t go,_  Kent thinks, as a man in scrubs comes into the room and says, “Mr. Parson, you’re awake.”  He comes to the side of the bed, businesslike, checking machines and tubes.  “Are you in any pain?”

Kent mimes drinking again, and his steady companion says, “I think he want water. Is not normal, him not speak.”  And although Kent has to roll his eyes at the chirping, he also has to nod.  Sometime in the last minute this angel has taken his hand; he is holding it gently, rubbing life into the fingers, carefully avoiding the IV feeding into the back of it.

“Your throat is still irritated from having a tube in it during surgery,” the nurse says patiently.  “I can’t give you water right now.”  Kent makes a noise of protest, and makes the hand sign again more vehemently.  “We’ll get you some ice chips, okay?”  


After a suspicious moment, Kent nods.

His angel _feeds_  him an ice chip.  Only one, but Kent sucks on it, slowly and painfully, feeling weird and numb.  He’s still holding the man’s hand.  He can’t feel his body.  He only hurts vaguely, in a way he can’t place.

 _Who are you,_  he tries to ask, but all that comes out when he’s finished the ice chip is, “Er oo?” which does not, even when repeated three times to a careful listener, translate into a question he understands.

 _Does he work at the hospital?_  Kent wonders, as that wonderful hand brushes away his hair again.   _When does he get off work?_

He falls asleep with the man still holding his hand.

* * *

When he wakes up the man is there again, taking his hand and asking how he feels. Kent stares at this stranger’s face intently. Melting brown eyes, fringed with ridiculously nice lashes; attractively slanting eyebrows.  Something about the too-largeness of his nose and mouth that makes Kent want to touch them, makes him feel like...

“Hi,” he says.  


He’s holding Kent’s hand. He’s very friendly.  He smiles a little and says, “Kenny, more ice chips?”

“No,” Kent says, remembering how much the last one hurt.  Then he remembers the feeding of it, fingers to his lips.  He decides to change his mind, but what comes out is, “You can touch my mouth again.”  


Oh, good; the man _does,_  light fingers on Kent’s lips. Smiles close to Kent’s face.  Kent can’t lift his head, so what he says is, “You’re so pretty.”

God, he really _is._   His hair looks really soft.  There’s a gold chain disappearing into the collar of his shirt and Kent wants to press his nose to the junction of neck and shoulder.  Hugging this guy would feel _really_  good; he probably smells really good, like fabric softener.  He’s looking away, a smile twitching on his face, like he’s trying to be a good hospital employee when someone just called him pretty.

“Thank you,” he says.  “I think you are pretty too.”  


_He thinks Kent’s pretty too?_   Kent can’t draw his head back, though in a distant fashion he feels his cheeks going warm.   _Pretty._   “Naw,” Kent drawls.  “You’re just being nice. Bet the... the hospital pays you to... say that. To everybody.”

“Hospital does not pay me,” the man says seriously.  


“You work here for _free?_ ”  Kent tries to remember whose job involves being at peoples’ bedsides.  Are middle-aged men candystripers?  Is this a chaplain?  “Like a volunteer?”  


“Do not work for hospital.”  He rearranges their hands, threading his fingers with Kent’s.  “Am only here for you.”  


“Oh.”  Kent digests this for a minute.  Then another hypothesis floats through his head and he tries, “Do I work with you?”  


“Kenny,” the man says, very patiently. “I’m your husband.”  


Kent can feel his eyes growing wide, and their laced hands grow huge in his vision, especially after he lifts them up to look at them.  They’re holding _hands._   “We’re... _married?”_

The man smiles again, like he can’t help it.  “Yes.”

“Bull...” Kent breathes, because he’s no gullible rookie.  “You’re tryin’ to trick me.  No.  You didn’t marry me.”  


The smiling man holding his hand reaches back with his other arm, flips his wallet onto the hospital bed.  One-handed, he opens it, reaches with fingernails beneath credit cards for something else.  Comes up with a little glossy photo, like the cutout from a bigger photo print.  A big happy man who looks like him, snapback on backwards, relaxed and sitting at a party, Kent in his arms. Kent’s head is tilted up to say something to the man behind him.  He’s... so happy it hurts to look at him.  


Kent takes a minute to process this.  His mouth gets dry from being held open like a fish goggling.  Finally he says, “I’ve _kissed_  you.”

His husband leans over and plants his lips on Kent’s mouth.  He _means_  it.

When he pulls back, begins nuzzling Kent’s chin and cheek, Kent does have to register a protest: “But you’re so _pretty._   And you married _me?”_

“Kent Vincent Parson,” the man affirms from the bottom of Kent’s jaw. “Eight years ago.”

“Oh my god,” Kent breathes.  When he looks again, the hand with the IV in it has a tan line on the ring finger, like he normally wears something on it, and he superstitiously doesn’t wear anything there that _isn’t_ a wedding ring.  


Would anybody but a husband kiss Kent’s ear so matter-of-factly, like it’s part of the territory that needs to be gone over, inch by inch?

“Okay,” he says, surrendering into the pillow.  Lifting his head up was definitely too much effort, and pain is ebbing back into his lower extremities.  “One question.”  


An attentive look greets him.  “Yes?”

Kent squeezes his hand and says, “What’s your name, babe?”

**Author's Note:**

> Because someone asked: Yes, he gets his memory back! It just takes middle-aged retired hockey players with love handles and a houseful of pets longer to shake off post-anaesthesia grogginess than, you know, lonely young cat owners at the top of their game. ;-)


End file.
